Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness attempts to thrust the three stars of the very first tactical RPG title for the PS2 back in to the spotlight with limited success. In this direct sequel to Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, our favorite demon overlord Leharl returns with his less-than-cooperative vassals Flonne and Etna in tow, and though we do learn a little more about Laharl’s less-than-pure demon bloodline and Etna’s origin story, much of it is delivered in an unemotional way.

D2 opens with the proposition that, despite subjugating both the Netherworld and beating the holy hell out of Celestia’s inhabitants over a decade ago, most of demon kind does not recognize that he is the true one-and-only badass undisputed Overlord of the Netherworld. In fact, most of the Netherworld has no idea at all that he even exists. A new faction made up of former vassals of a long-dead king are introduced, who drive most of the back-story for D2. They tell Leharl that he is not worthy of the title because he simply does not measure up to his father King Krichevskoy’s legacy, and that he must prove himself. Hijinx ensue.

Innocents, those unsecured residence in items that give extra stat bonuses, are an integral part of the Disgaea series. By entering into the vast randomized dungeon that is the Item World, players can find these residence, secure them by defeating them and then move them around to items as they see fit.

As I’ve traversed the nearly endless Item World (in Disgaea D2 the new limit is 9,999 levels) I’ve encountered just about every resident available. Comparing the Innocents with those found in Disgaea 4, I have noticed that a number of them have been omitted from Disgaea D2. Some of these omissions make sense because Disgaea D2 no longer uses “Innocent Town” where special events can occur to create unique hybrid innocents (reading beyond this point will reveal all the innocents in the game, so if you consider this a “spoiler” then you may want to stop reading right now).

We continue to detail various parts of NIS America’s latest game in the Disgaea series, bit by bit, culminating in a review right around the time of the game’s official North American release. Today we take a brief look at how the Tower system has evolved over the years, and why it is still a useful way to evolve your favorite characters despite some minor changes.

Are you tired of your Prinny comrades exploding when you toss them? Do you want your Prinnies to live long and fruitful lives? Well in Disgaea D2 there’s a way to make it so that Prinnies no longer go BOOM! when you toss them.

In Disgaea D2 you can make that favorite Prinny team member safe from the after effects of being tossed by mucking about with Evilities. It takes a lot of work and may result in one or two serious fights with demon lawmakers, but it’s ultimately worth the effort.

For now I’m going to talk about some of the subtle changes I’ve discovered so far in playing a pre-retail release of NIS America’s latest Disgaea game, Disgaea D2. I have been playing the game on the PS3 for the last few days and enjoying it, despite some changes here and there that shake-up many of the systems that long-time players have grown accustomed to… This post is spoiler free (no details on plot, characters, etc.) but if you want to learn about the mechanics by actually playing the game, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this in the first place. More after the jump below, but you’ve been warned.

I played a little bit of Wasteland Kings for the first time, and it was fun even though I kept getting murdered at every turn. In case you don’t Wasteland Kings was developer Vlambeer’s contribution to the recent 72-hour Mojam game jam. The games made during the jam were part of the Humble Bundle’s Mojam 2 Bundle, with the proceeds going to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Block by Block.

If you didn’t buy the bundle yest (which includes games from other developers including Mojang and Wolfire) you can get in on the action until March 2 at www.humblebundle.com. So far they have raised almost $500,000 for the two charities.

We (Andrew Eisen, E. Zachary Knight and James Fudge) try a live episode of the show via Google + with mostly good results. We talk about the Sony PlayStation 4 two-hour long press conference and the sad news that several IGN employees have been laid off and that the web sites it bought – GameSpy, UGO, and 1UP would be shut down. We hope you enjoy listening to us rant and ramble as much as we love ranting and rambling!